The Padres’ flurry of deadline dealings brought Mason Miller, JP Sears, Ryan O’Hearn, Ramón Laureano, Nestor Cortes, Will Wagner and Freddy Fermin to San Diego. The slate of new acquisitions addressed major deficiencies in left field and behind the plate to varying levels while also deepening the pitching staff. It was another frenetic deadline for the Friars — one that was complicated not only by a lack of depth in the farm but also some financial constraints. The Padres operated with minimal payroll flexibility in the winter, and it seems ownership’s budgetary crunch carried over to the deadline.
Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reports that the Orioles and Brewers both sent substantial cash considerations to the Padres in the respective trades involving O’Hearn, Laureano and Cortes. Baltimore sent $3.324MM to San Diego, while Milwaukee included $2.169MM in cash. The combined $5,493,300 the Padres received in that pair of trades effectively pays the trio of O’Hearn, Laureano and Cortes down to the prorated league minimum for the remainder of the season. Each of the other four players acquired by the Padres (Miller, Sears, Wagner, Fermin) was earning scarcely more than the $760K minimum as a pre-arbitration player.
The Padres are still more than $25MM north of the luxury tax threshold, per RosterResource, so the influx of cash won’t help them stay under the tax threshold (or even out of the second penalty tier). It does, however, mean the Padres barely added anything to their actual cash payroll for the 2025 season. That’s seemingly been the bigger concern than the luxury threshold anyhow. Nick Pivetta’s four-year contract, for instance, came with a $13.75MM average annual value but pays him just $4MM in 2025 (a $1MM salary and $3MM signing bonus).
San Diego’s actual cash payroll sits a bit above $213MM. It’s not clear what sort of payroll expectations ownership will have for the 2026 season, but there’s already more than $166MM in guaranteed money on next year’s books. That doesn’t include the $6.5MM club option on Laureano, which seems like a lock to be exercised.
That number also fails to account for arbitration raises. Each of Jason Adam, Adrian Morejon and Gavin Sheets will be due raises on this year’s salaries ($4.8MM, $2MM and $1.6MM, respectively). Miller, Sears, Fermin and righty Bryan Hoeing will be arbitration-eligible for the first time. Miller, in particular, will be in line for a notable salary. Closer Robert Suarez has a two-year, $16MM player option he’s likely to decline this winter, however, which would subtract an $8MM salary from the books.
Between Laureano’s option and the slate of arbitration raises, San Diego’s payroll can be reasonably expected to climb close to $200MM before making a single addition. Assuming Suarez indeed opts out, the Padres would be looking at a payroll in the $190-192MM range. If the goal is a payroll in the same realm as this year’s $213MM mark, that doesn’t leave a ton of additional space. Then again, each of Miller, Laureano, Fermin, Wagner and Sears proactively addressed some 2026 needs, and the Padres expect to welcome Joe Musgrove back to next year’s rotation after he missed the 2025 season due to Tommy John surgery.
Due to that financial situation, the Padres presumably had to include more prospect capital in their deadline trades than if they didn’t need the other club to eat significant money. That’s a notable element as the Padres have traded away a large number of prospect in previous deals, so their farm system hasn’t been considered especially strong lately. Coming into this year, MLB.com ranked their farm 25th out of the 30 teams in the league, with Baseball America putting the Friars 26th.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the Padres’ lack of impact talent was initially a roadblock in the Miller talks. Rosenthal notes that Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller tried to line up a three-team deal. He asked the A’s to tell him which prospects they wanted from other clubs, with the goal of then acquiring those players to send them to the A’s for Miller. There were rumors the Padres were considering trading majors leaguers like Dylan Cease or Suarez, so perhaps Preller could have traded one of those guys for the prospects he needed to get Miller.
However, the A’s didn’t want to take that complicated route and wanted to just deal directly with one club. They got interest from clubs like the Yankees, Phillies and Mets, but those clubs weren’t willing to surrender their top prospects. Specifically, Rosenthal notes that the Phillies weren’t willing to include Andrew Painter while the Yanks wouldn’t part with Spencer Jones or George Lombard Jr.
The Padres were eventually able to get the deal done, despite their weak farm system, by including top prospect Leo De Vries. They also included pitching prospects Braden Nett, Henry Baez and Eduarniel Núñez but De Vries was the key piece to getting the deal done. Having now traded De Vries and several other prospects, the Friars will presumably have an even weaker farm system in next year’s rankings, but that is seemingly a price they were willing to pay in order to build a winning team here in 2025.
As for Sears, the other player who came to San Diego alongside Miller, he may be viewed more as depth than a key piece of the club’s push this year. He started for the club on Monday, allowing five earned runs in five innings against the Diamondbacks, before getting optioned to Triple-A yesterday.
Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune notes that Sears may not be recalled in the remainder of the season, unless someone gets hurt. Michael King is on the injured list but has begun a rehab assignment, having thrown 3 1/3 innings in his first rehab start on Sunday. Once he’s healthy, the rotation will be Cease, King, Pivetta, Cortes and Yu Darvish. That would leave Sears in a depth role alongside guys like Randy Vásquez, Kyle Hart and Matt Waldron.
Going forward, however, the path to a role opens up. Each of Cease, King and Cortes are impending free agents. Musgrove should fill one of those vacancies but that still leaves space for Sears to carve out a role in next year’s rotation.
Photo courtesy of Chadd Cady, Imagn Images
You have to give the Pads credit for manipulating the payroll restraints while playing roster roulette at the deadline. At least they are trying to build a winner even with those issues.
Padres are “going for it” .
They want to win a Championship.
AJ Preller made some great moves to give the Padres a chance to go deep in the playoffs.
Preller appears to have “over paid” on many of these deals.
One example: Sending both Bergerts and Kolek to the Royals for Fermin.
Yes, Catcher Freddie Fermin was a great pickup.
But, Preller should have held onto either Bergerts or Kolek as rotation depth and substituted another pitcher or prospect as one of the players in that deal.
And, Preller and the Padres could have also signed free agent Catcher James McCann to back up Fermin. McCann would give them a great backup catcher to Fermin who can hit also.
Maybe, it was a “cash crunch”?!
Did AJ Preller also bid on utility man Willie Castro?! It would have been a great fit as an additional bench addition to the Padres.
Preller and the Padres signed 15 new players in the recent MLB draft and another 15 undrafted free agent, young players.
Based on Preller’s track record, he the Padres staff will restock their farm system over the next 2-3 years.
Hate to see SS Leo Devries go.
Other, young shortstops can be drafted and acquired.
It is the nature of this highly competitive NL West Division.
Dodgers and Padres are #1 and #3 in MLB attendance for 2025 with both expected to surpass 3M in yearly attendance.
(NYY are #2).
Regarding the attendance, the Padres are #2 in attendance per game:
Padres – 42,529
NYY – 41,956
Never in my wildest dreams would I think the Padres would ever outdraw every team besides 1.
Dodgers: 50,135.
Nobody else is really close, but the point is taken. The revitalization of the Padres fan base is a remarkable development, and a positive one for NLW baseball.
Preller is a fraud won’t be around 2-3 years
Lol padreporvida, Preller has better job security than your Teamster job!
#longliveAJinSD
I’d take that bet
SportsFan, I agree that AJ made some great moves. I don’t know if he overpaid or not, but i think its important we recognize there are two sides in a trade. Perhaps there is no trade with the Royals if Bergerts and Kolek are not included. Maybe AJ bid on Castro, but another team made a better offer. Maybe that team overpaid for Castro. Now if we find the trade values are out of whack, that would definitely bolster the case that AJ overpaid. As a side note, McCann is not a free agent. He has been on the Dbacks for 5-7 weeks and done well offensively and defensively. I doubt the Dbacks made him available as Moreno is still out for the foreseeable future.
Amazing how a team taking in hundreds of millions in profits cries poverty just because they over leveraged the team debt to support other business interests and line their pockets but the media just plays along because they kiss Preller’s butt.
what other business interests? the Seidler brothers have only one asset … the Padres.
<–When you admit you know nothing …a little research
“ In 2025, the MLB competitive balance tax (CBT) threshold, also known as the luxury tax, is $241 million. The second tier of the CBT surcharge begins at $261 million, meaning teams exceeding $241 million but not exceeding $261 million will be taxed at a 20% rate on the overage. If a team exceeds $261 million, the overage is taxed at a higher rate, with the second tier being 32%. ”
Yeah, Padres aren’t crying poor…..since they’re already in 2nd tier CBT at 265 million they’re taxed at 32%. They’re trying to reduce their tax bill by asking for money in trades to lower their tax hit. Which I don’t blame them.
Being 4 mill over their bill is 1.28 mill in taxes at 32%
If the padres didn’t acquire the 5.5 mill in cash they’d be 9.5 over and taxed 3.04 mill
2nd Tier CBT = crying poor
Thanx for all the giggles!!!
When have the Padres cried poverty? Lol. You must be confused with the team you root for. Literally making stuff up with your comment.
Never Remember
Your opinions?!
Do you have any facts to back up your contentions?!
Chicago Cubs Goof in charge Jed Hoyer traded for Soroka knowing his velocity was down and got two innings before he ended up on the injured list. Knowing that, the agent for JP Sears should call Jed before the clown reaches out and tries to sign Dave Dravecky. If you aren’t aware of his story you can google it
So Adam will definitely be traded for prospects or league minimum players this offseason
Suarez is a free agent and can opt out.
Miller was acquired with the knowledge Suarez is likely gone.
They’ll most likely keep Adams as the 8th inning guy and go Estrada Adams Miller for 2026
Yeah I have been thinking the same thing. The main area where the farm actually has some guys who can contribute in 2026 is in the bullpen. Makes sense to flip him to get younger and then they can backfill internally.
The Padres added five players to the MLB roster yet increased payroll just 1.5M dollars.
Laureano’s production this past week alone was probably worth 1.5M.
MLBTR does a great job and I appreciate the info, but one bone to pick with this article is the way it reads it implies that Sears can’t be recalled this year unless there is an injury.
Sears can be recalled in 15 days. Acee also said in that article that they could go to 6 man rotation when that time limit is up, they just need to factor in what having one less reliever would do to the pen. Personally I don’t think they should go to a 6 man, but the quote from Schildt says it’s on the table
Preller trades for a lot of players and so the media is enamored with him. But I don’t think he gets the chemistry aspect of a baseball team. Maybe they win this year. We’ll see. They contend with talent but they haven’t gotten out of the NL playoffs yet in this era.